Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)

Financial Skeptic Humor

Back in the Goode Olde Days, people spent uncounted hours trying to forecast the future. If they had a cat, they could try felidomancy, which is the art of using cats to predict the future. If they had feet, they could try pedomancy. Nowadays, people indulge in fedomancy, which is the art of predicting interest rates by observing the Federal Reserve Board. It's a difficult practice. John Wagooner,  USA Today God, grant me the capital to accept the things I cannot change; the reserves to change the things I can; and the Fed Auction when all that blows up. Amen. Calculated Risk

Skeptic dictionary

• AAA: Derogatory term implying some rating machinations or other  well hidden scam in bond or synthetic securities ratings. "Playing AAA game" means a Ponzi scheme based on false rating of mortgage securities aided and abetted by credit agencies. Sometimes used sarcastically like in "Have a AAA day"  or "If you want to be in AAA, you better buy an Autoclub membership".

• Asymmetric monetary policy: a politically correct name for crony capitalism. The key idea is privatizing profits and socializing losses. Greenspan was the most famous proponent of crony capitalism and really enjoyed in his role Robin Hood for banks, hedge funds and derivatives traders. He was widely admired both on Wall Street and Congress (which at the time was just an extension of the Street).  Let's call a spade for what it is: privatizing profits and socializing losses is crony capitalism, pure and simple.

• Auction-rate securities: Things which happens when you want cheap money, substitute borrowing short term for borrowing long term, get in trouble, dial 1-800-get-me-out and no one answers

• Auditing: The variant of the game "Where's Waldo". Buried in every accounting statement there is something the accountant's refer to a "Plug" - a number they fudge to get the totals to add-up. The auditor's job is to find it.

• Analysts:  You don't need them in a Bull  market, you don't want them in a Bear market . . .Old Wall Street joke

• Analysts rating:  "Cornucopian puffery from navel-gazing, coddled analysts who swallow government-manufactured economic statistical propaganda wholesale because they are either stupid or afraid."

• Arm-Waving: When people take fluffy, subjective information and treat it as fact, to justify a viewpoint . . . that they want to justify.

• Balance sheet: Exercise in creative accounting. Creative implementation of  accounting rules to transform "loss" to "gain"
• Bailout: Reminds me of something Desmond Tutu once said: “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
• Bubble cycle: The new name of business cycle. See The Business Cycle  was replaced with the  Bubble Cycle.
• Bubbleonians: Individuals who believe we are in a perpetual bull market. Alternatively called "401K donors"
• Bubblevision: CNBC, Mecca for bubbleonians near and far.
• Budget: The most intentionally misleading compilations ever attempted.  Mathematically, the budget is comic. Politically, it is conniving. Morally, it is probably closer to a venal sin, rather than a cardinal one. Legally, it is a fraud.
• Bushville: Temp. housing for whose who lost their home to subprime real estate foreclosures. Compare with Hoovervilles -- shanty-town 1930s communities of homeless citizens nestled out of sight near the railroad tracks.
• Casino: Another name for the stock market, at least while the dipsters and bubbleonians are still in force. "Wallstripers" are people in charge of the stocks casino.
• Casino Capitalism: Variant of version of feudalism the USA morphed during the last two decades. This brand of feudalism relies of levies from 401K lemmings (called donors in Wall Street jargon).  The most revered institution after Wall Street in this flavor of feudalism is the military.
• CDO, CLO: Unidentified financial objects (UFO)
• Central bankerese -- a special dialect of English designed to hide all important or relevant to the discussion facts. One of the best known practitioners was Alan Greenspan. The term implies never-ending deceit like in quote "How do you know when the chairman of the Fed is lying? Answer: Every time he moves his lips" (Barron, 1979)
• Commerce: " A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E." The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
• Comrade Ben: An accidental revolutionary who is trying to bail out the inmates who were running the asylum under Maestro Greenspan and now are trembling under their beds about the possible consequences of their actions. Fed actually resembles Politburo as an agency which in not under the direct control of the Executive branch or Congress, and therefore is not really answerable to the voters. Ceding regulatory control of financial sector to such an agency amounts to an outright assertion that democracy just doesn't work.
• Cold turkey market: market after collapse of the major bank in the process of deleveraging of the economy. The term gained popularity  after  the collapse of Bear Stearns in March 2008.  Also refers to Greenspan preferred way of "treating drag addict with cocaine" policy.
• Corporate accounting: a misnomer. Former Senator Alan Simpson famously said: “Those who travel the high road in Washington need not fear heavy traffic.” If he had sought truly deserted streets, however, the Senator should have looked to Corporate America’s accounting.  -- Warren Buffet
• Counterfeit economy: Economy which instead of producing anything of value, propagates a Ponzi-style of  importing Chinese staff and exporting IOUs. The system hummed like clockwork until the debt chickens started coming home to roost.
• Captains of industry: People extremely skillful in disguising what is going on is the name of the game in America's late, degenerate capitalism. You get your name in the paper by ginning up mergers and acquisitions. You build up mountains of debt. And you crunch the numbers into such grotesque and unnatural shapes that even their own mothers wouldn't recognize them. The company itself suffers. Real investors, who actually understand what is going on, are appalled. But the little guys who get their information from the newspapers and their emotions from television love it. Growth! Expansion! Technology! We're all going to get rich….
• Credit Default Swaps (CDS): financial weapons of mass destruction (WDM)  
• Currency madness: behavior of fiat currencies in periods of financial crisis
• Cheerleaders: Sell-side analysts whose idea of research is to talk to company management before issuing a "buy" rating (or to downgrade a stock to "accumulate" after it implodes). Also used for servile press that tried to brainwash the viewers/readers/listeners with messages like "Please leave Bernanke, Paulson, and Wall Street Bankers alone! They went to Princeton, Harvard, and Yale! These are America's best and brightest!! America is in the best hands!! They know exactly what to do!"
• Disastrously-botched fiscal policy (DBFP):  replay of Reagan  domestic macroeconomic mismanagement (aka "voodoo economics") during 90th and 200x under Easy Al.
• Dead Cat Bounce: Miracle that many expected to deliver in early 2008 to make possible for major foreign players to get rid of US equities.  
• Dead fish: former CIOs of major banks who are not yet in jail
• Debt Star: An interstellar financial instrument of balance sheet destruction. The Debt Star is able to destroy an entire planetary economy with its Correlation Laser.  Often used ironically like in "Darth Paulson is nearing completion of the Debt Star..."
• ''Deficits, schmeficits'': An approach to fiscal deficits reflected in the immortal quote "deficit does not matter". typical among banana republics leadership.  Inevitably lead to cold turkey syndrome (see above)
• Derivatives:  Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction.  Wall Street’s version of nitroglycerin. In the two decades of Greenspan's tenure, the Fed's Washington staff, other regulators and the Congress allowed and enabled Wall Street to migrate more and more of the investment world off exchange and into the opaque world of over-the-counter derivative instruments and structured assets. This change is described by people like Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as "innovation," but our old friend Martin Mayer rightly calls it "retrograde." By replacing exchange traded securities with ersatz OTC instruments, Greenspan and the economists who dominate the Fed's Washington staff have created vast systemic risk that need not exist at all and that now threatens our entire financial system. They cause a failure at so many levels that it’s hard to find a piece of the financial system that is actually unaffected.  As a result we are now dealing with failed institutions, shortsighted  analysis, and some unscrupulous, greedy bastards who would (and do) loot any system that allows for looting. Commenting on Bear Stern rescue by Fed Meredith Whitney noted that the rescue was absolutely all about counterparty risk. If Bear went under, everyone’s solvency was going to be thrown into question. There could have been a systematic run on counterparties in general,” she said “It was 100 percent related to credit default swaps.”
• Dipsters: Individuals who mindlessly buy on dips. See also "Bubbleonians."
• Dollar: fiat currency which requires mint freshener.  Often called "US peso." A Federal Reserve economist once recounting a conversation with his young daughter, who asked him, "What do you do at work, Daddy?" He answered, "I help make important decisions." "What kind of decisions, Daddy?" "Oh, things like how much money the government needs to print."
• Fed: The most dangerous branch of Federal government able to destroy the economy of the country. In difficult times serves as Wall Street’s pawnbroker of last resort. Of more precisely bartender of last resort serving booze to already drunk patrons. Fed is much like the Wizard of Oz: the perception of its power vastly exceeds reality. In normal times, the limited tools central bankers have at their disposal can be used to great effect, but extreme conditions reveal their impotence.
• Fed headquarters: place which requires wet vacuum cleaning from corruption and incompetence accumulated during Greenspan era.
• Fed Chairman: The most powerful unelected official in the USA. Often called Grey Cardinal.  Lobbyists in this position are worse then con men and criminals. It's difficult to accept, but it's true - and we'd best do something about not repeating the disaster of appointing a person like Greenspan and letting him stay for 20 years protecting his position like Edgar Hoover.  It is because of Hoover's long and controversial reign that FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms. That same should be done for Fed. In addressing our present Subcrime Bubble, we should opposed to concentrating yet more authority if trembling hands of yet another Benevolent Chairman.
• Feb Mandate: "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil". Especially true about financial derivatives.
• Finacons: allusion to neocons.
• Finance: "The art or science of managing revenues and resources for the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of America's most precious discoveries and possessions." The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
• Financial Kool-Aid: See securitization.  "It's sort of a little poetic justice, in that the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end, " -- Warren Buffet
• Financial models: bad habit that are more dangerous for financial health of banks and other financial institutions then smoking is to your lungs. Should come with appropriate health risks warning.
• Financial meltdown: A situation in which a rumor that both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers are insolvent looks like an understatement and people suspect that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are on the list. 
• Flopping and chopping: Up-and-down motion that essentially goes nowhere.
• Easy Al: Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, the father of subprime mess and securitization crisis. Greenspan two forthcoming books are: "What, Me Worry?" and  "Maintaining the Faith in Free Market with Derivatives". Jesus may have turned water into wine, but Greenspan has turned the US dollar into toilet paper.

• Economic history: " a never-ending series of episodes based on falsehoods and lies, not truths. It represents the path to big money. The object is to recognize the trend whose premise is false, ride that trend, and step off before it is discredited." George Soros

• Exorbitant privilege: Back in the 1960s Charles de Gaulle would complain about the "exorbitant privilege" that accrued to the United States by virtue of its role as the key currency in the post-World War II Bretton Woods international monetary system. Other countries had to worry about their balances of payments: they had to constrain demand or go through the distress of a devaluation in order to balance their trade. But the United States did not: it could simply print extra dollars to cover whatever excess of desired imports over desired exports happened to exist.
• Improve education so we can better compete globally: Get used to a lower standard of living
• Incestuous amplification: Standard condition in large financial institution. Usually defined as a condition where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation.
• Investment bankers: a greedy group of crooked, corrupt, inbreeding halfwits, as that is the nature of banks and bankers (aka "emphasize revenue at the expense of risk" ). Here in America, they are supposed to be kept in check by the Glass Steagall Act, which prevents banks from speculating in the markets and playing risky games with depositors' money, which was enacted after the Crash of '29.  It was a good law that worked perfectly fine, until a creep named Bill Clinton perversely repealed it during his embarrassing presidency, and look what happened; his wife wants to be president! Hahaha! (The Mogambo Guru)
• Invisible hand: Adam Smith’s invisible hand has a puppeteer -- the Federal Reserve..

• Harvard Business School MBAs:   People with surgically removed ethical compass which is replaces by a very strong instinct for social climbing. Harvard peer pressure is all about rich spoiled brats enjoying the closed society of a system based on nepotism which is a natural extension of their social environment. Harvard is just a daycare center where kids can play and then party. Often they are taught by prominent looters like Andrei Shleifer. Alumni include Jeff Skilling, Paul Bilzerian, Henry Paulson, Stan O'Neal, and of course, George W. Bush. HBS is turning out roughly 900 MBAs a year. A lot of people who graduate from HBS aren't the brightest bulbs and are hardly different from being "stuck in adolescence", where seeking acceptance is a prime motivation. Seeing the H on a resume is a clear "no hire" indicator for any innovative company, but this is offset by their vast alum network which perpetuates the gross mediocrity. The problem is contagion: once one gets in, the network follows. Some graduates are fundamentally stupid, unlearned, and incapable of extracting any real content even from into level books. Most are unambiguously afflicted with excessive hubris, compulsive salesmanship, mediocre intellect, and unimpressive analytical skills -- in other words, quite well positioned to assume leadership roles in an average company.

• HIWTYL (“Heads I win, tails you lose”): A popular game that is played by investment banks and brokerages with 401K investors. 401K investors are usually ecstatic when new management of overleveraged banks both cuts the their dividend and dilutes their equity after paying billions in severance pay and bonuses to the outgoing management.

• Hellasious: Based on derivatives (from "Hell as IOU's")

• High living standards: For decades the western world considered Texans to be the great unwashed, uneducated, uncultured peasant rogues. And we may soon regain the living standards that accompany that description. Detroit's high schools already have a 31% graduation rate.

• The Emperors Without Clothes Club:   S&P, Moody and Fitch. With the monoline insurer fiasco, the rating agencies give critics more evidence that their grades are a sham, dictated by political considerations instead of economic reality.

• Great Moderation: Since post-1973 real global GDP has remained weak vs. the 4.9 percent average for 1950-73, the more correct term might be 'The Great Stagnation', though that has certainly not been the case for the become stretched-too-far financial sphere. The Great Moderation could also be described as the Debt Abberation.
• Great Pretender: Ben Bernanke. Refers to Ben pretending that inflation is not a problem.  Many object singling out Bernanke and claim that the a whole culture of Pretenders in Fed under Greenspan including  Easy Al was supporting the pretense. Sill unless Bernanke somehow manages to pull the rabbit out of his hat prior to January 2009, many think his career as head of the Fed might be one of the shortest on record. Right now the Fed is ready to monetize cow dung, if that will help the banks. And since the Fed is owned by the banks, why is this position of theirs always seen as a surprise?
• Greenbashism:  A new and popular form of Monday morning quarterbacking. Publishing a book critical of  former fed chairman Greenspan after he left the office while being silent before; also bashing "Greenspan's cult-like belief is self regulating market" or calling him "a dangerous fundamentalist"  in mainstream press after everybody realized  the derivatives and subprime horses left the stable. 
• Greenspan:  Prominent supporter of "crony capitalism" (see asymmetric monetary policy), a former Wall Street lobbyist and republican party political operative who managed to became Fed chairman  and helped to introduce socialization of losses for the most reckless financial players (sometimes called "Greenspan put") while simultaneous neutering regulation in the name of free markets.  Encouraged Wall Street to play with financial nitroglycerin in the form of derivatives (see financial weapon of mass destruction). Followed the financial industry’s lead in promoting reckless deregulation, even as dangerous trends and little-understood products like derivatives proliferated.  See also Financial Rasputin. Got the nickname Maestro for the fact that he managed to last almost 20 year and was not fired or jailed for his transgressions. Benefitted from extremely good timing. first collapse of the Soviet Union saved him from being fired for incompetence. Also while during the last four years of  Greenspan tenure the economy was like a slow-motion train wreck, he managed to  jump the train near collision and even published a subprime book. Managed to save profits from his subprime book from repossession.
• Greenspanism:  A promotion of crony capitalism (financial socialism or socialism for investment banks and hedge funds) based on privatization of profits and socialization of losses via government sponsored bailouts.  In a narrow sense dereliction of Fed duty in regulating banking system along with compulsive micro-managing of interest rates by Feb, a bad habit similar to masturbation. Important part of Greenspanism is that are artful camouflage of intentions and actions as well as real consequences of the current policy by long explanations to various Congress committees designed to conceal absence of  substance and complete lack of understanding of the current situation by Fed (Ezra Pound said “The less we know, the longer our explanations.” ).
  
  Important part of Greenspanism is the creation of cult of personality by arbitrary and frequent change of interest rates (interest rates masturbation). If the Fed proposed tomorrow to fix the price of orange juice, everyone would think they were mad. Ironically, the vast majority sees nothing wrong with price fixing interest rates, even though it is clearly proven that Greenspan Fed has no idea what it is doing. Consecutive bubble blowing is a proof. Also Greenspan Fed missed the risks in the shadow banking system  -- it really thought that risk had been diversified globally, and didn't realize that a lot of US housing risk was held in off-balance sheet vehicles backstopped by US institutions in London.  Is a wider sense socialism for banks on the downside along with gangster capitalism on the upside;  see asymmetric monetary policy.
• Greenspeak: the worst type of lie, despicable even in lie-infested worlds of politics and banking. Named after Fed Chairman testimony supporting Bush tax cuts. In a narrow sense blatant betrayal of your previous position and proclaimed principles for four more years in the office.
• Greenspan prize:   Like Greenspan got  "Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service" it might be time to establish "Greenspan Prize for Distinguished Fed Service"  or, better, "Greenspan prize for the banana republic approach to banking supervision"
• Guantanamo monetary policy:  force-feeding $3 billion of daily debt to the rest of the world.
• Kinky stocks: Companies with stratospheric valuations.
• Last of the Mohicans: Uncorrupted analysts who do their homework. The species is rare, borders on extinction. One example is Meredith Whitney, the analyst who prompted a $369 billion plunge in the value of US shares in November 2, 2007 by issuing a negative note on Citigroup. She courageously braved Wall Street’s culture of intimidation after receiving several death threats from investors in the bank.
• Lemmings:  Element of self-destruction built -in investment banks modus operandi. Usually the whole crowd goes off the cliff...
• Level 3 assets: "mark to a hope & a prayer" .
• Liquidity: Convenient scapegoat which usually is invoked in case of any substantial of financial problems and masks absence of IQ. Usually used in the form of a "lack of liquidity": an epidemic dysfunction of modern society.  As money games are considered to be similar but more exciting then sex it  needs to be differentiated with  a very similar but milder ailment called erectile dysfunction which usually affect men of the same age bracket as typical CEOs of large banks.
  
  Examples of usage: Failed deal? Blame lack of liquidity. Failed banks? Blame lack of liquidity. Ailing high street sales? Blame lack of liquidity. Lost your house? Blame lack of liquidity. Hellish traffic jams on your journey out of the capital for your Easter break? Blame  lack of liquidity.
• Margin: Who is this guy Margin that keeps calling me?
• MBS:  Toxic financial waist. Also type of derivatives that US Patriotic Fund for Saving Big Banks from Subprime Mess, named after Chairman Bernanke in interested in buying.
• Money management business: the industry which adds no value and by any standards ought not exist
• Monoline insurance:  Viagra for securitization
• Mr. SuperSIV:  Treasury secretary Henry Paulson
• New economy: "Americans make a living selling each other houses, paid for with money borrowed from the Chinese." -- Paul Krugman
• Neither responsible nor prudent: Fed-speak for “criminal and crazy”.
• OPM: Other People's Money. In a narrow sense used as synonym for 401K investment accounts that are used as a hostage to reckless speculation by Wall Street giants.
• Open mouse operations: Monetary policy propaganda. In narrow sense -- Treasury claim that it support strong dollar while in reality it supports its decline.  Often used in broader sense as any statements by Fed or Treasury officials that they know are materially wrong and but they still lie for the sake of the country.
• Pressure on bank balance sheets:  bank is insolvent
• Regulation: As Robert Peel would put it, in financial matters the question is never laissez-faire vs. regulation, but always good smart regulation vs. bad stupid regulation.
• Rest of World (ROW): People who need to supply their resources for the fleshly printed US dollars.
• Since World War II:  used by economists when they are afraid to refer to Great Depression.
• Shrimp fest: A gathering of government leaders, i.e., IMF meetings, G8 meetings, etc.
• Securitization: a vicious circle in which banks and other market players who took on too much risk are all trying to get out of unsafe investments at the same time, causing “significant collateral damage to market functioning.”
• Serial Bubble Blowing (SBB):  Attempts to blow securitization bubble after dot com bubble and commodity bubble after securitization bubble by Greenspan and Bernanke. "...the financial community is using winning long commodity and short dollar positions to offset losses on credit market instruments. Leverage in one direction to allow deleveraging in another. The Fed can’t exactly send those trades into a tailspin; there would be no place left to hide. Indeed, the Fed needs to feed a bubble somewhere – the “where” in this case is just terribly inconvenient as far as inflation [is] concerned..." http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/03/fed-watch-set-t.html
• Shadow banking system: A complex system of leveraged lending with hedge funds as the major players. It is so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in August, 2007. Is the shadow banking system the derivatives are not just risk management tools. As Gross and others see it, the real problem is that derivatives are now a new way of creating money outside the normal central bank liquidity rules because they're private contracts between two companies or institutions.
• Spitzer put: Was not he  heroically supporting New York’s number one industry? Is not service economy the only one left in the country ?
• SOX: the most successful attempt to strangulate the US economy with over-regulation.  Unleashed the greed of Big Five in the same way as securitization unleashed the greed of investment bankers.  The level of stupidity and detachment from reality in enforcing SOX has analogs only in Mao cultural revolution excesses.
• Stimulus package:  "Who says the American government is dysfunctional? You certainly wouldn’t believe it from witnessing the alacrity that the US Congress moved with in order to give US$168 billion of the people’s money to the people, otherwise known as the "stimulus package". " -- Julian Delasantellis
• Stockbroker : "What’s the difference between a stockbroker and a pigeon? A pigeon can still leave a deposit on a Porsche."
• Subcrime:   Behavior of Maestro and his Fed puppets. Can we repossess the profits he made from his book?
• Tape painting: When the powers that be force prices absurdly higher in a short period of time.
• Traders's Momentum Daily: Investor's Business Daily.
• The Sword of Damocles: an ancient name for side effects of financial deregulation: possible collapse of systemically important player who engaged in risky or crazy behavior due to the greed and lack of regulation. The problem is that the losses imposed on the financial system by such collapse could be  enormous. There is some justice that Alan Greenspan, the most reckless Chairman of the Federal Reserve in history, was still alive to observe collapse of Bear Stearns. Translating the FED statement that disclosing the contents of a $30 billion portfolio somehow constitutes a 'danger to markets' from NEWSPEAK to ENGLISH: "the risk to the taxpayer far exceeds $30 billion and constitutes a danger to our current jobs and to future job prospects with Goldman, Lehman, or even one with a second tier hedge fund"
• Walking away:  Abandoning mortgage. In case house prices declined substantially, for people with poor credit ratings and few assets, apart from their house, walking away does seem to make disturbingly good sense.
• Walk Away Cry Babies: a throng of irresponsible lenders who are demanding "responsibility" from borrowers whose calls they would not even take a year ago.  Greedy lenders, their irresponsible customers and incompetent Fed formed an unholy alliance to perpetuate a myth: that consumers, companies and governments could keep spending more than they earned and suffer no penalty.
• Wall Street: a place were the inmates run the asylum. "A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven."  The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
• UBS: "Used to Be Smart". When you subtract the losses in the buying power of the Swiss franc as inflation in prices has surged around the world, and which is currently running at 2.6% in Switzerland, I derive some Bad, Bad News (BBN) for UBS shareholders; you will almost certainly never break even in terms of buying power by owning UBS shares. You will always get back less buying power than you invested! Hahahaha! Suckers! (The Mogambo Guru)
• "Unprecedented times with respect to the financial strains": The phase intended to mask the gravity of the situation with the exact meaning: "Folks, we are pretty much f@cked. Time for another major bailout -- once again dear friends." For example, "We are in nearly unprecedented times with respect to the financial strains." Summers, March 7, 2008 at Stanford": Only rogue economists failed to see the problems years ago when the Ponzi scheme of mortgage financing was being fueled by the Fed and the regulators looking the other way. Crooks were doing what crooks do when allowed and legally protected.
• Zombie banks: banks which pretend that they are solvent. As Keynes pointed out, 'The markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain liquid'. Substitute "markets" with "banks".  Other variant used is "Zombification of Banks".

Notes: Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors should be expected. This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It cannot replace the best teachers and the best books. The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a living tree... Some links on older pages are broken. Please try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link (see HOWTO search the WEB for details). We would appreciate if you can mail us a correct link. Search Amazon by keywords:     Open directory Research Index

Old News ;-)

[May 3, 2008] Fed Humor.....

Thanks to the Economist
 

[May 1, 2008] The latest nickname for UBS is "Used to Be Smart"

[Apr 27, 2008] Cassandra Does Tokyo Earth to Exchanges Raise Margin Requirements Now!!!

March 04, 2008 | Cassandra Does Tokyo

(Fade in to telephone ringing.....)

Brrrring Brrrrring.

EARTH: Hello? Futures Exchanges?
This is Planet Earth calling.

FUTURES EXCHANGE(S): (in Nasal BQ Accent) Yea? Waddda youze want?

EARTH: Ummmm if you look out the window, we seem to be encoutnering a bit of turbulence. Or is Turbolence. Oh well, never mind spelling or semantics, things are turbo-ing and we here on Planet Earth are becoming concerned that someone will get hurt. Errrr, yes, hurt rather badly.

FUTURES EXCHANGE(S): Whoozit you sez you were again?

EARTH: Errr Planet Earth. Terra Firma. Gaia. The Big Blue Marble.

FUTURES EXCHANGE(S): Did Vinny put yooze up to this?

EARTH: Ahem No. We're calling in respect of The Public Interest.

FUTURES EXCHANGE(S): Waddaya want again.

EARTH: Well we were thinking you should be thinking about raising margin requirements for speculators. Significantly. And increasing the penalties for mis-categorization as a Hedger to "Death".

FUTURES EXCHANGE(S): Vinny DID put ya up ta this!! Yooze are trying to mussel in my rackit arentcha??

EARTH: No. Now please I implore you. Things are really getting out of hand. Traders are embarking upon positions on the basis of the thin-ness of trade and the fact that you're the ONLY leverage in town. This is a recipe for disaster....

FUTURES EXCHANGE(S): Are you CRAZY? I'ze live for days like these. THIS is what its all about. But you looks like a nice boy, prolly got some wop blood in ya so I tell ya what: "I'll do you a favor and swop the caffinated jo' for decaf. THAT should cool things off a bit.

EARTH: Ummmm errrr. yes thanks. Now about those margin requirements....

[Apr 24, 2008] Bloomberg.com Opinion

Trust in Central Banks Passes Point of No Return: Mark Gilbert

Commentary by Mark Gilbert

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Here's the plan. Hokey-Cokey Bank bundles together its tainted 2007 mortgages and bakes an asset- backed bond. It hands that bond to the Bank of England in return for a bag of freshly minted U.K. government gilts. It then uses those shiny new gilts as collateral to borrow much-needed money.

What would you, as the treasurer of Hokey-Cokey Bank, do with that cash? Would you:

(A) lend it to eager first-time buyers Bob and Sue to purchase that apartment they want, even though every bone in your body tells you property prices are headed down, down, down?

(B) hand it to Tom, who also wants the apartment, except that he plans to rent it to Bob and Sue for less than he'll have to pay every month on the mortgage?

(C) scurry to the Hokey-Cokey vault as fast as your little legs will carry you, toss in the cash, lock the door, and tell your chief executive the liquidity problem is resolved and he won't have to beg the shareholders for fresh capital after all.

Hello? Am I missing something here?

[Apr 19, 2008] We're All Busta Now

Calculated Risk

Our Brian forwarded this email to me yesterday, and I haven't stopped chuckling yet. It's very well done and certainly appears to be a legitimate "memorandum" from Accredited. Apparently no one has yet managed to get it posted on Accredited's website, which would formalize the joke nicely, but that's no reason not to share it:

April 18, 2008 - San Diego , CA

Accredited Home Lenders is pleased to announce the promotion of Miss Helen Busta to the newly created position of Chief Advisor of Things Both Relevant and Interesting in the Non-Conforming Loan Market.

The position was created to help set the record straight in a market that's been turned upside down. Miss Busta will apply her vast knowledge and years of industry experience to bust the subprime myths that are so prevalent today.

As a young woman, Miss Busta arrived in San Diego from the Midwest and took a job in the mortgage industry as a temp. She was soon hired by Accredited to help out in the company's first office above an auto repair shop. Miss Busta earned her B.A. in History from San Diego State University while working full-time at Accredited.

Her duties will include advising Accredited staff and helping brokers build their non-conforming business. Miss Busta will soon launch her own Web site, where she will answer any and all questions regarding the mortgage industry. Her long-standing service to Accredited and wealth of knowledge from 20 years in home lending have made Miss Busta a solid performer in any type of economic climate.

Please extend your congratulations to Miss Helen Busta on her significant achievement.

 

[Apr 6, 2008] Like an Onion

SDO insurance was just a fig leaf that masked bad odor.  A nice confidence building game for lemmings matching toward the cliff ;-)

Financial Armageddon

My thought for the day: The credit crisis is like an onion: every time you peel back another layer, you want to cry.

... ... ..

Why would banks buy insurance on AAA securities, especially from ACA, which had only an A rating? That would be akin to homeowners at the top of the hill purchasing flood insurance from a company at the side of a river. If a flood did happen, the insurer wouldn't be around to pay any claims

[Apr 6, 2008] More than 50 percent chance of U.S. recession Greenspan - Yahoo! News

Old man reputation as a forecaster makes him good only for Comedy Central now. And the fact that Ei Pais bothered to ask for his views is an exquisite humor in itself.  Endorcemnt of Mcain should be judged similarly.

There is more than a 50 percent chance the United States could go into recession, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan told El Pais newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

... ... ...

Greenspan, the U.S. Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006, endorsed the Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the interview.

"I'm Republican and I support John McCain, who I know very well and who I respect a lot," he said.

[Apr 6, 2008] naked capitalism Robert Shiller Pushes Fed as Stability Regulator

When the monkey steals the keys to all the cages in the zoo, you're going to have a problem. In our great nation, there are a limited number of potential institutions which could exercise authority over those
"monkeys" which have destabilized the financial system, and from the perspective of competence, independence and the possession of a clear understanding of the inter-market linkages, the list is as ugly as it is short.
!. Congress
2. The President
3. The Courts
4. The Treasury
5. The Fed
6. An agency yet to be named
The big problem is that the "monkeys" will ALWAYS be smarter than 1-4, and ALMOST ALWAYS smarter than 5-6. They will also always be wealthier, and hence more influential, than 1-6, and will find ways to neuter rules they consider onerous, with a packed Supreme court on their side, should congress or the president fail to support them. In the end, there is only one regulator who can clean up the AUGEAN STABLE. His name is Mr. Market.

[Apr 5, 2008] Bernanke Says Recession Possible

"Poor guy. Is he really the last person they told?"

"Everybody and your mother knows it's a recession, except for President Bush and Bernanke," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of ECRI. "They know in private, but it's their role to be cheerleaders for the economy."

[Apr 3, 2008] Closing the 'Collapse Gap' the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US EnergyBulletin.net Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist. I am more of an eye-witness. I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and I have tried to put my observations into a concise message. I will leave it up to you to decide just how urgent a message it is.

My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the "Collapse Gap" – to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War.

[Apr 3, 2008] The Ethics of Harvard MBAs

With professors like Andrei Shleifer  the prominent academic who has side business of " looting of post-Soviet Russia" what should you expect ? 

After the accounting scandals of 2002, where Skilling and other Harvard MBAs played high-profile roles, the school studied what it could do to improve the conduct of its graduates. It concluded that students' ethical compasses were set before they got there, which one could view either as accurate or a way of punting.

[Apr 2, 2008] The Day the Subprime Died (rewind) - Mortgage Grapevine

With apologies to Don McLean.

The Day the Subprime Died

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that yield spread made me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
Those mohos I could finance
And I could pay my bills for a while.

But February made me shiver
With every good faith I’d deliver.
Bad news on my e-mail
I just lost one more sale.

I can’t remember if I cried
When I saw the Fremont slide
But something touched me deep inside
The day the Subprime died.

So bye-bye, B\C money supply.
Sent my package to four lenders
But they all asked me why.
And good old boys were on a crack induced high
Singin’, "This’ll be the day the loans die,
This’ll be the day the loans die."

Did you write some B\C loans,
Did you blow bucks on the iPhone?,
Did that nut Cramer tell you so?
Do you believe in rate control,
Can FHA save your borrower’s soul,
Why is underwriting today so damn slow?

Well, I know you’ll have to cut those fees
And you’re wondering who has moved your cheese.
Bernarke’s on the news.
You can’t afford the MBA dues.

I was a semi-rich middle-aged broncin’ buck
With a master plan and a lot of pluck,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the Subprime died.

So bye-bye, B\C money supply.
Sent my package to four lenders
But they all asked me why.
And good old boys were on a crack induced high
Singin’, "This’ll be the day the loans die.”

Copyright © 2007 Bad Grapes Inc. (ASCAP)
International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.

by Cedonullandvoid August 12, 2007

[Apr 1, 2008]   New UBS Logo

Calculated Risk

Source: Jan-Martin Feddersen, Immobilienblasen who writes:

I think it is a good start to kick off the "Fools Day" with news from the the greatest fool UBS.

(hat tip Dwight) Here is the actually UBS logo.

[Mar 28, 2008] OldVet on Forced Marriages, Bear Stearns

This one is by OldVet...

---



There I was holding my head and moaning and crying about how the banking system and the financial system were on the verge of collapse. I saw the forced marriage, or ménage-a-deux, between JP Morgan and Bear Stearns.

But the Fed was involved, which couldn’t be good. Oh God, please help us.

Then I realized it was really a ménage-a-trois, what with the head of JP Morgan being on the board of directors of the New York Fed. It was a family affair. The family was taking care of its own. Brilliant. I’m now free of stress and ready to get back to the trough! Get out your wallets, oinkers.

[Mar 28, 2008] From Animal Farm To Animal House

In Orwell's Animal Farm all animals are equal - except that some are more equal than others. All in the spirit of law, order and the proper functioning of society, of course. Fittingly, the animals that have chosen this role by themselves and for themselves, are the pigs.

Cut to US financial markets today. After years of swinish behavior more reminiscent of Animal House than anything else, the pigs are threatening to destroy the entire farm. As if it wasn't enough that they devoured all the "free market" food available and inundated the world with their excreta, they now wish to be put on the public trough. Truly, some businessmen believe they are more equal than others.

But do not blame the pigs; they are expected to act as swine nature dictates. The fault lies entirely with the farmers, those authorities entrusted by the people to oversee the farm because they supposedly knew better. While the pigs were rampaging and tearing the place apart, they were assuring us all that farms function best when animals are free to do as they please, guided solely by invisible hooves. No regulation, no oversight, no common sense. Oh yes, and pigs fly..

[Mar 27, 2008] The Fed Now a bad parody of itself

Looks like Fed clowns are having their best days...  I really like subtle humor of  Kroszner self-annihilation:  "Substantial anecdotal evidence indicates that failing to verify (a borrower's) income invited fraud..."  The only question that arises is "Should he get a jail term or just a probation"  for the dereliction of duty.

The Mess That Greenspan Made

According to this report in the Associated Press, the Federal Reserve is now bolstering confidence in the mortgage lending market by proposing sweeping new rules:
 

It also would prohibit lenders from engaging in a pattern or practice of lending without considering a borrower's ability to repay a home loan from sources other than the home's value. The proposal would curtail misleading ads for many types of mortgages and bolster financial disclosures to borrowers.

"Substantial anecdotal evidence indicates that failing to verify (a borrower's) income invited fraud," said (Fed Governor Randall) Kroszner, who has been the Fed's point person on the consumer protection provisions.

Come on AP, is this really you or were you invaded by writers from The Onion?

[Mar 26, 2008]  FT.com - Markets - Smile through the crisis

[Mar 26, 2008] FT.com - Markets - Smile through the crisis

"What’s the difference between a stockbroker and a pigeon? A pigeon can still leave a deposit on a Porsche."

[Mar 24, 2008]  The Economy Blame-O-Meter

In the top-middle part of the cover of the current issue of Time you'll find the question, "The Blame-O-Meter: Who screwed up the economy?" Inside you'll find this story by Justin Fox with the following graphic which, unfortunately, is not available online:

To be fair, part of the graphic extends to the right (not shown above) where blame for "Wall Street Wizards" comes in somewhere between former Fed Chief Alan Greenspan and President George Bush.

Casting further doubt on the impartiality of this otherwise fine article (i.e., does the President really deserve the most blame?) is that the least amount of blame (two ticks into the "Blameless" region of the Blame-O-Meter) is laid at the feet of "Home Buyers".

For those of you keeping track at home, yes, this qualifies as a "Greenspan Mess" sighting. Remember the rule - "Greenspan" and "mess" within one paragraph or 100 words of each other either vertically, horizontally, OR diagonally.
 

Ministry of Truth Dictionary for the new brave financial world

DOUBLE = HALF
KNOW = GUESS
PROFIT = LOSS
 
LIGHT = DARK
FLAT = GLOSS
LUCK = LACK
GROSS = NET
SOAR = FALL
 
EVE = DAWN
LIFT = DROP
FIND = LOSE
UP = DOWN
 
PRO = CON
RISE = SET
ON = OFF
IN = OUT

[Mar 24, 2008] Clinton proposes Greenspan lead foreclosure group -

Mar 24, 2008 |  Yahoo! News

No! No! No! No! No!

Yahoo! News Many in the community knew that the retired fire chief was really an arsonist, but now the lady running for mayor wants to bring him back to help put out the fires that still burn.

[Mar 21, 2008]  Sixteen of the biggest, fattest porkies

FT Alphaville

The top 16 big, fat lies de nos jours

1. Derivatives reduce volatility

2. The BRIC economies are decoupling

3. Inflation is 2 per cent

4. Greenspan was a maestro

5. The Chinese won’t let their market fall in Olympics year

6. (Junichiro) Koizumi reformed Japan

7. The Americans are devoted to free market solutions

8. The Swiss are prudent

9. The French are brilliant derivatives traders

10. The UK is suffering a housing shortage

11. Private equity funds add value to the companies they buy

12. The cap rate for real estate should be the government bond yield

13. Alastair Darling is in charge of the situation

14. Ben Bernanke is in charge of the situation 1

5. The G8 is in charge of the situation

16. Anyone is in charge of the situation

Comments

1. Here are some alternative porkies :

   1 Gordon Brown has run the economy prudently.

   2 The credit crunch was caused by sub-prime lending in America.

   3 The credit crunch will not spread to the real economy.

   4 The banking system has been lending responsibly.

   5 The authorities have been watchful, understand the problems and will continue to take prompt, appropriate and timely action.

   6 World asset values will not fall significantly.

   7 The world banking system will be able to adjust to the reduced asset values that world debt is secured against.

   8 This is a temporary adjustment, before normality resumes.

   9 America’s position in the world will not be affected.

   10 China will co-operate to maintain the status quo so that Western profligacy can continue.

   11 Economic power, then political power and then military supremacy will remain in the West.

   12 The Western way of life is not under threat and Western capitalism, democracy and aspirations will spread throughout the Middle East, China, Russia, Africa, South America, etc.

   13 All these fundamental truths are understood by George Bush. People who think differently do not have George’s depth of understanding.

   14 The greatest philosophical truths emanate from Texas.

[Mar 17, 2008]  A shocking new concept - living within your means

From Reuters comes this story (hat tip MM) about a crazy new idea that's now sweeping across the country - living with your means. The next thing you know, people will actually begin to save money.

[Mar 17, 2008] naked capitalism Greenspan Now Blames the Risk Models

Alan Greenspan's Wikipedia entry in 2020:

"Former US Federal Reserve chairman chiefly known for implementing the disastrous policies leading up to the 2008-?? recession that proved to be the death knell of neo-liberalism. Also known as Rasputin of US finance.

Greenspan’s legacy, like that of the last president he served, was written in the ashes of the unprecedented financial destruction that’s been brought about by his policy failures."

[Mar 16, 2008] JPMorgan buys Bear Stearns for $2 a share

Lehman, it was nice knowing you.

[Mar 12, 2008] Economics Blog Fed Creativity an Exchange

The Fed is now the worlds biggest SIV! Kudos Henry Paulson aka Mr. SuperSIV!

After yet another textbook-rewriting proposal from the Federal Reserve Tuesday, what will it think of next to thaw the credit markets? An exchange between a journalist and a Fed watcher:

Journalist: I keep expecting to get hit by a kitchen sink flying out of the Fed.

Fed watcher: Hold onto that sink. You’ll be able to repo it at the discount window.

–Greg Ip

[Mar 11, 2008] The Great Pretender

The Name of the Game is Pretending

• The rating agencies pretend the monolines deserve an AAA rating.
• The Bush administration pretends we are not in recession.
• The Fed pretends we are not in recession.
• The Fed pretends the TAF is temporary.
• The Fed pretends it knows what the collateral it is accepting is worth.
• The Fed pretends it is in control.

[Mar 3, 2008] Was former  Fed Chairman a clown wearing too big shooes ?

January 25, 2006 | CrossingWallStreet.com

Portsmouth Herald News:

Academician has big shoes to fill as Fed Reserve head

San Diego Union Tribune:

Big shoes to fill

U.S. News and World Report:

Following the legend of Greenspan, Bernanke certainly has big shoes to fill.

St. Petersburg Times:

One focus is the transition at the Federal Reserve Board, where Alan Greenspan is on his way out as chairman and Ben Bernanke is stepping into those extra-large shoes.

Black Enterprise:

Big Shoes to Fill

The Daily Yomiuri

It will not be easy for Bernanke, who is tasked with overcoming domestic and external problems that could short-circuit the currently sound U.S. economy and to fill the big shoes of Greenspan, who has won international recognition for his economic policies.

NPR:

In terms of his role as a political player, analysts agree he has some big shoes to fill.

Investors Business Daily

Bernanke knows he has big shoes to fill.

Smart Money:

You'd think Alan Greenspan shows up to work in a clown costume with all the talk about the next Federal Reserve chairman having big shoes to fill.

[Feb 28, 2008] Inflation is Your (Ben's) Friend

Calculated Risk Here is partial excerpt from a great Saturday Night Live piece in the late '70s, with Dan Aykroyd impersonating Jimmy Carter:

Inflation is our friend. For example, consider this: in the year 2000, if current trends continue, the average blue-collar annual wage in this country will be $568,000. Think what this inflated world of the future will mean - most Americans will be millionaires.

Everyone will feel like a bigshot. Wouldn't you like to own a $4,000 suit, and smoke a $75 cigar, drive a $600,000 car? I know I would! But what about people on fixed incomes? They have always been the true victims of inflation. That's why I will present to Congress the "Inflation Maintenance Program", whereby the U.S. Treasury will make up any inflation-caused losses to direct tax rebates to the public in cash.

Then you may say, "Won't that cost a lot of money? Won't that increase the deficit?" Sure it will! But so what? We'll just print more money! We have the papers, we have the mints.

[Feb 23, 2008]  Troubling analogies between USSR and USSA (United Subprime States of America).

• A near universal contempt for the political leadership (Leonid Brezhnev, anybody ???)
• A near universal contempt for the economic policies.
• And in Europe this contempt is not veiled, its "in your face" ... loud, impolite critics, few defenders.
• "I remember a cartoon back around 2001 where two sad looking wall street suit type guys are sitting at a bar drinking Martinis when one says to the other 'I want my bubble back!' "
• Underwear from Wal-Mart, but chocolates from Godiva mentality
• Almost 9 million American households (against 4 million slaves in the American South at the beginning of the US Civil War) are now tied down by negative equity like Russian serfs

[Feb 20, 2008] Calculated Risk

"Mankiw's 10 principles of economics, translated for the uninitiated", by Yoram Bauman, www.standupeconomist.com . Presented at the AAAS humor session, February 16, 2007.

[Feb 20, 2008] What they need is a moratorium on price declines

The latest foreclosure moratorium plan, announced earlier today, is all well and good for delaying the inevitable - a major repricing of anything and everything that has to do with real estate and mortgages now that everyone has regained their senses - but it does little to get at the heart of the current problem.

Paraphrasing Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, if banks and the government really want to fix the current mess, they should get at the heart of the problem - price declines, not foreclosures.

As the Orange One pointed out some time ago (see Angelo Mozilo is a moron), as long as home prices continue to go down, foreclosures will continue to rise.

The obvious solution? Stop home prices from declining. By decree.

[Feb 19, 2008] How SubPrime Really Works 

This utterly hysterical Powerpoint has been circulating round Wall Street trading desks for a few days now. I embedded it into Google apps and posted it on line -- boom! Instant viral video. Now everyone can enjoy the warped sense of humor that accompanies losing $100s of billions of dollars. (MS Office not required)...

[Feb 18, 2008] Slowing economy scuppers junk-bond funds  by John Waggoner

USATODAY.com

You've had a bad week. The new bumper on your car is going to cost $3,000. Your tooth implants will send your dentist to Aruba. Your pen pal in Nigeria didn't transfer $25 million to your bank account.

How could things get worse?

Oh, yeah. You own a junk-bond fund.

[Feb 17, 2008] Physician heal thyself  by Julian Delasantellis

Asia Times

In the United States, many prominent economists, including Clinton-era Treasury secretary Laurence Summers, are proclaiming that the US economy desperately needs this assistance. In a January 6 opinion piece in the Financial Times, he laid out his argument as to why the US economy was in desperate need of aid.

Fiscal stimulus is appropriate as insurance because it is the fastest and most reliable way of encouraging short-run economic growth at a time when a serious recession downturn would pressure American families, exacerbate financial strains, raise protectionist pressures and hurt the global economy.

Like a drunk in a bar ordering another round because he’s heard that, since a glass of red wine a day has some purported health benefits, it’s logical to assume that a whole bottle of 120-proof Scotch must have even more, the Congress heard this wisdom, raised a glass to the fine Dr Summers, toasting, "I’ll drink to that".

[Feb 8, 2008] Boom in the Doom - iTulip.com Forums

"monetarists, economists whose ideology revolves around a hatred of wage inflation for the bottom 95% and taxes for the top 5% while never meeting an asset price inflation it didn’t like."

[ Feb 1, 2008] CBS Follies Every Breath You Take Lyrics

See also YouTube - Every Breath Bernanke Takes. It's really high qaulity parody...  The lead performer's name is Michael O'Rorke. MBA 2006... Poor Helicopter Ben :-). 4:15pm

The Big Picture  reported that the WSJ's Marketbeat was just as amused:

Glenn Hubbard: King of Pain

Today's best four minutes of the day: an uproarious parody of the Police's "Every Breath You Take" by students at Columbia Business School, which purports to show the school's dean, Glenn Hubbard -- and, no, that is not Mr. Hubbard, the school confirms, but a look-alike student -- taking Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to task for monetary policy mistakes (in a fit of jealousy over not getting the position). It's hard to resist the charm of any attempt to poke at the Fed, especially one that includes the couplet "Hope your models break/bet that beard is fake." The real Mr. Hubbard was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

April 26, 2006 [George W. Bush:] "Ben Bernanke is the right man to build on the record that Alan Greenspan has established. I will urge the Senate the act promptly to confirm Ben Bernanke as the fourteenth Chairman of the Federal Reserve."

Every breath you take
Every change of rate
Jobs you don't create
While we still stagflate
I'll be watching you\

Every single day
Bernanke takes my pay
When growth goes away
Inflation will stay
I'll be watching you

Oh can't you see?
The Fed's where I should be
How my poor heart aches
With each of your mistakes

First you move your lips
Hike a few more BPS
When demand then dips
And the yield curve flips
I'll be watching you

Since you came supply's lost without a trace
I dream at night that I punch you in the face
Your interest policies I cannot embrace
I feel so wronged and I long for Greenspan's place
I keep cryin': Benny! Benny! Please...

Oh can't you see?
The Fed Chair should be me
How my poor heart aches
When prices escalate

Every move you make
Every oath you take
Hope your models break
Bet that beard is fake
I'll be watching you

CBS is great
Wouldn't change my fate
But we'll be watching you
We'll be watching you